Moonlight & Monsters: Ten Vampire Tales

by J. R. Rain

  Now I heard Danny’s voice, his halting, thoughtful inflection.

  Anthony went on... or was it Danny? “He says he should have been there for you. That he tried to be there for you. That it was all too much for him.”

  My son’s gestures and posture had changed too, the way he was now sitting and moving his hands. Even the way he tilted his head and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry all over again, Sam,” said my son, although my son was not here, at least, not in this moment.

  I took in some air, let it out, and said, “Hi, Danny.”

  ***

  “It’s been a long time, Sam.”

  My ex-husband, through my son’s eyes, stared at me unblinkingly. The parking lot light found my son’s strong cheekbones, his shockingly clear skin, the muscular roundness of his shoulders under his t-shirt. The light also caught something else in my son’s eyes: a curiosity, eagerness, excitement. I guess if I had been bottled up inside someone for, what, three or more years now, I would be eager to get out too.

  “I would never harm Anthony,” said Danny. “I never meant for him to know I was here; at least, not this early. He didn’t need to be burdened with my presence.”

  “Or with the ultimate bounty hunter,” I said, referring to the devil and his three-headed dog.

  Anthony stared, then smiled and nodded. Except it wasn’t his smile, nor his nod. Indeed, it was all Danny. “Same advice, Sam. It is good that you do not say the dark one’s name, Sam. Saying his name alerts those who are near.”

  “Those who are near?” I asked.

  “The darker creatures you can’t always see. Those things that live in shadows, or in the ground, or flit through the night.”

  “Demons?”

  “Sometimes, yes. But not always. Mostly, it is the darker entities, those who lived unsavory lives, to say the least, who he uses as eyes and ears.”

  “But I thought they would be in hell.”

  “Their souls, yes. But an aspect of them sticks around. You have seen such aspects enough times. You were with me not so long ago, in the cavern. That had been a mere fragment of who I really am.”

  The cavern, yes. I had found Danny sitting next to his own grave. But it hadn’t really been Danny. An aspect of him, apparently. A fleeting hint of what he was. Not his soul, but a memory. A true ghost.

  “So these aspects report back to the devil?”

  “In essence, yes.”

  “Why?” But the answer occurred to me as soon as I’d said it. “They are looking for leniency.”

  “That, and they are bastards, through and through.”

  ‘Through and through’ was, of course, something Danny always said. I nearly smiled. Nearly. Instead, I shuddered. The good times with Danny had been over a decade ago. He had long since hurt me, and had long since been on my shit-list. Taking refuge in my son and putting Anthony in harm’s way had not only put him back on the aforementioned shit-list, but had moved him all the way to the top!

  “Of all people, why our son?” I asked. “You could have hidden anywhere, I assume.”

  There was a small delay before he answered, “Yes and no, Sam. I was a new initiate. Hanner and her crew had only just barely introduced me to the ways of the dark masters. I’d been at it for only a few months, in fact. At that point, I knew just enough to save my soul from hell; indeed, it is one of the first things we learned: to escape death and, most importantly, to escape hell as well.”

  “But how?”

  “They live beyond time and space, in a place unknown to even the devil himself.”

  “The Void.”

  “Yes, Sam,” said Danny, awe in his voice. “You know of this place?”

  “I have my sources. I also understand that the dark masters were banished there.”

  “In a way, yes. But it is also a place of their own choosing, their own creation. Admittedly, there have been powerful... rules set into place, rules that keep them in exile.”

  “Rules set up by Light Warriors,” I said.

  “Yes, Sam.”

  “This doesn’t explain why you chose Anthony.”

  But as I said the words, I saw him look down at Anthony’s arm, and I saw it for the first time. Maybe I had always seen it but had ignored it. Maybe I had assumed it came with the territory of being a rough-and-tumble teenage boy. But there it was, on the inside of his forearm, something reddish, and, if I looked at it hard enough, it almost seemed to pulse, too. It could have been a recent scratch, but I doubted it.

  “You marked him,” I said.

  “Yes, Sam. We had an agreement.”

  Something cold and icy—even colder and icier than normal—gripped my heart. I watched my hands opening and closing. My skin was translucent, my veins purplish.

  “One of the first lessons I learned as a dark master in training was that death is merely an inconvenience. Yes, having a physical body is always ideal, but there’s ways around it.”

  “Possession.”

  “Yes,” he said, and I thought I might have detected the smallest hint of a hiss in his answer. “The dark masters, to put it bluntly, lost a war for mankind centuries ago. It was a war that was fought in the shadows, in decrepit castles, in deep caves and even magical realms. Sometimes these battles were fought alongside the wars of mortal men, too. Sometimes man was a pawn for these dark masters, manipulated and used. All were fought largely unbeknownst to man. Indeed, had the dark masters won the war, mankind would have been all too aware of their new overlords.”

  “You do hear yourself, right?” I asked. “You sound like you stepped off the set of A Game of Thrones.”

  Danny didn’t smile or outwardly acknowledge what I’d just said. He just stared at me, and swayed slightly in his seat.

  “It is what I learned, Sam. But most important, I learned that the dark masters had created a world of their own. A safe haven. A place for their own souls to retreat and gather. Mostly, a place to escape their soul’s ultimate destination.”

  “Hell,” I said.

  “Yes, Sam. As you know, a belief in hell is necessary. I learned that too. But if you have just an inkling of suspicion that hell might be real, that is all the Dark One needs. Springing forth from your beliefs, a vast personal hell begins to assemble, ready and waiting upon death, stocked with demons and all sorts of nastiness.”

  “And the dark masters believed in this hell?”

  “They did, perhaps even more so back then.”

  I’d been told that a personal hell did await those who believed they deserved such a punishment. For those who believed their final destination was heaven... their personal hell was never fully realized. Perhaps it was reapportioned to someone else. I didn’t know. Seemed kind of a waste. Anyway, for those with no such beliefs, a very different afterlife awaited. Ultimately, though, once the cloud of belief dissolved, everyone ended up in the same place. A sort of afterlife wonderland, closer to heaven than anything.

  Except for the dark masters who bypassed the entire system, and fled to their own world beyond time and space, far away from the devil himself.

  Danny, as a new recruit, had known just enough to flee the devil but not enough to find this mystical world. The Void.

  “And what is this agreement you had with our son?” I asked.

  “I grew up in the church. I grew up believing in heaven and hell. Although I rejected such teachings later in life, there was always a part of me that held out some kernel of belief, some fear, that something terrible might be waiting for me.”

  “So on the off chance that you might die, you made a pact with your son to possess him?”

  Danny stared at me and, there, he finally blinked. “I overheard something I wasn’t supposed to hear, Sam. I overheard that I was being used, and suspected something might happen to me.”

  “And you stuck around?”

  “I didn’t have much choice, Sam. I was in it completely.”

  “But you had enough time to make a deal with our young son?”<
br />
  “I did, Sam. I did, and I would do it again.”

  I heard the growl rising from deep within me. A sound that surprised even me. It was, I think, a first for me. I found myself beyond speech.

  “Sam, I have grown closer to our son than ever before. And he to me. Ask him yourself. Reconnecting with him these past few months have been some of the greatest moments in my life.”

  “Except it’s not your life, Danny. It’s his life, which you are hijacking. What is that mark on Anthony’s forearm?”

  “It was made back when we made our agreement, Sam. It was my connection to him. My way back to him, if you will. A place for my soul to disappear into, with his permission.”

  “So now what, Danny? You are going to keep staying here, hiding from the devil—”

  “Sam, the name—”

  “Yes, yes. He who shall not be named. Fuck you, Danny.”

  Anthony blinked slowly, then again, faster. Then faster and faster, and then he shook his head. Blinked again, and my son was back.

  “Mommy, no. It’s not like that. Daddy is right. I love having him with me, helping me. He’s really cool, really helpful. And really funny too. He’s not like before. When he was never around and hardly ever talked to me.”

  “Anthony, he’s using you to hide—”

  “I don’t care, Mommy! He can use me all he wants. The devil can’t have him, not ever. Ever! He’s my friend. He’s my daddy. I want him to stay safe. I want him to be my friend forever!”

  Anthony made a move to yank open the door, but I reached out and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight, keeping him in the minivan. There was no need for him to march off or run away, or do something stupid. We were not enemies. He pushed against me, trying to break free, but I held tighter and buried my face in his neck. Dammit, he still smelled like a little boy. Like sweat and dirt—and was that maple syrup I smelled? His strength was undeniable. Had he truly wanted to, I think he could have shrugged me off him. And, hell, I was in full vampire mode, the sun having set an hour or so ago. But he fought me only briefly and then sank forward and was now crying, and as he cried, I cried too.

  And as we cried together, I knew that whatever I had planned for his daddy—for Danny—had gone out the window. I needed a new plan, whatever that was. I also needed to come to terms with that fact that Danny—my worthless, cheating, once-loving hubby—might just be in our lives forever.

  Yeah, I think I might have just cried a little harder.

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  Bonus Scene: Flying

  I was flying.

  With Kingsley watching my kids, I felt confident enough to drop off Anthony and head out to work. And by out, I meant up.

  How did you find me, Talos? I asked. How did you even know that I existed? How did you know to come to me when I first saw the single flame in my thoughts, back when I first leaped off the hotel balcony?

  I heard a rumbling chuckle deep in my thoughts. A good thing I did hear, huh?

  It would have been a rough landing otherwise.

  Oh, you would have been fine. Your body is surprisingly resilient; in fact, it’s growing more resilient as you progress into true immortality.

  What do you mean?

  Your body is accepting its assignment. It hadn’t been fully prepared to be immortal, you know. Your cells had expected to age accordingly, with natural life stages. Now they are being asked to do something different. Commanded, if you will. It takes a body and cells some time to wrap its collective mind around its new existence.

  So the longer I am immortal...

  The more your cells adjust and evolve and accommodate.

  You learn something new every day.

  And to answer your question: You were already on my radar, so to speak. I was only awaiting my first summons.

  But how did I get on your radar?

  Our worlds were already connected, Sam. Thanks to dark masters that have come before you. To put it simply, you and I had an agreement at a soul level.

  Souls from other worlds can have agreements?

  Not common, but yes. Especially if the worlds are connected.

  And you agreed to help me?

  And you as well.

  I agreed to help you? I asked.

  In a way, yes. It is a great honor for me to be by your side, Sam. Giving of myself and trusting another with my body has expanded my own awareness. Besides, there may come a day when I do truly need your help in return.

  Of course, I thought. Anything.

  I flapped my wings—his wings—slowly, enjoying the icy wind that surged around me, enjoying the sense of lift that each flap gave me, the sense of freedom, too. With these wings I could go anywhere. Of course, with the single flame, I could truly go anywhere, too. Instantly.

  And before you say it, Sam, yes, your life is weird.

  I nearly laughed, but stopped myself. I had heard what Talos sounded like when he laughed, and it was not pretty.

  Ouch, Sam.

  I would have grinned too, but Talos had no lips to grin with.

  Ouch again, Sam.

  I considered Talos’ appearance all over again and asked: So why did I initially think of you as a bat?

  You had a rather outdated preconceived concept of vampires.

  And you changed to adjust to my perception?

  Oh, I didn’t change.

  My perception changed?

  Yes.

  How does Queen Autumn come to our world? I asked suddenly.

  The woman from the book?

  Yes.

  There are many possible answers, Sam. But, in essence, her desire is great enough, and so a way was found.

  I want to help her.

  I know.

  But I don’t know how.

  Not with that attitude.

  I chuckled under my breath, which caused some smoke to inadvertently waft from the corner of my lips. Talos’ lips. Good point.

  An answer will come, Sam.

  I thought about that. My client is a creator.

  And so I heard.

  He literally created her. I’ve read her story. Or parts of it. It’s unfinished.

  Interesting.

  What’s interesting?

  That she came into your life with her story as yet finished.

  I came into her life?

  And she into yours, Sam. Think about it.

  I did, and I kept on thinking about it until an answer dawned on me. I suddenly knew what was happening, and what we had to do.

  I could hug you, Talos.

  You could, but then we would drop like a rock.

  This time I did laugh, and a great, screeching scream rent the night air. I adjusted course and aimed for Charlie Reed’s house, where Allison was waiting for me.

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  About the Author:

  J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over seventy novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

  Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.

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